


Her Secrets Have Secrets

by cielinadress



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 13:40:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7847230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cielinadress/pseuds/cielinadress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha was ready for someone to notice her necklace. Or maybe she wasn't.<br/>(Set near/during/after The Winter Soldier.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Secrets Have Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> when those clintasha feels strike in the middle of the night sometimes you just have to send your friends a message about a fic idea, and, you know, sometimes that idea just turns into a full fic appearing in their inbox at 1am.

Steve never noticed Natasha's necklace.

To be fair, he hadn't really noticed anything about any women at all since Peggy, but Natasha pretended not to know that. In any case, she was sort of glad for his obliviousness. For one thing, it saved her having to share her made-up excuse for the tiny arrow she wore around her neck. She would, naturally, pretend it had nothing to do with Clint. But Nat was the sort of person whose backup plans had backup plans, so of course she had another story lined up, one which she would deliver grudgingly, as if the asker had really talked the truth out of her. She'd created deeper secrets, one where Clint had given it to her to remind her that it was him who'd brought her into S.H.I.E.L.D. and trusted her, and therefore it would be him she would be hurting most if she ever switched sides again. It was plausible for a secondary reveal, something she had reason to hide; it reflected badly on her. For someone like Steve, however, someone who trusted her (somehow, she would have to get used to that) she needed another version of the story.

"Oh, this old thing? No, haha, it has nothing to do with Clint. I bought it for a friend but found something better for her at the last minute, so I kept it for myself. I don't often wear jewellery, what do you think?"

That's right, she would deflect. Give them something else to think about.

"Okay, fine, whatever, so it's about Clint. What, you gonna tell him? Pass him a note in class??" She would laugh scathingly (she'd mastered the sound years ago). Then, she would carefully drop her mocking smile, sigh, and tell Steve seriously, "There was a bad week, a few years ago. He was out on a mission and I should have been with him. I was on my own mission, his was supposed to be easy, and he was supposed to rejoin me on mine. He was out of contact for 103 hours. S.H.I.E.L.D. decided he was dead and sent me in to extract whatever was left. I bought this in some gift shop on the way back after I found him—alive." The last part was unnecessary, but it would resonate with Steve's own experiences, his loyalty to his team. He continued to wear the Captain America suit because of the friends he'd saved and inspired while in it. What was the difference, really, between a suit and necklace?

But he never noticed, never asked, and never gave her a reason to use all her excuses. That was okay. She had so many unused lies in her head she could live the rest of her life spinning a different story every day and still have heaps to spare. But part of her wanted him to notice. She wanted to tell him the truth. She had the absurd sensation that she should _earn_ the trust that he'd already placed in her.

She wanted to tell him that she was pathetically in love with her closest friend, that she wore an arrow on her necklace just because it reminded her of him. She buried this desire for honesty and thanked the empty sky that he never noticed, and never put her in the position where she would have to choose to lie to someone who was becoming a real friend.

This all stopped mattering the moment she wandered into Steve's hospital room (she was actually ready to lie this time, to tell him she had vital information to convey so of course she wasn't just checking on his health, don't be ridiculous) and Hawkeye himself was already chatting with Steve.

"Oh hey, Nat!" Clint greeted her, which involved looking at her, which, for him, meant noticing every last thing about her. Including the necklace she made a point of never ever ever ever wearing where he could ever see her. God dammit, he was supposed to be with his wife and kids right now, what possible reason could he have to appear so suddenly in the city? She knew him better than she knew herself but she could not have predicted this.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" she let joy colour her speech and began the tiring game of pretending not to know that he was pretending not to know that she was wearing a necklace that was absolutely, completely, 100%, totally about him.

"Better weather," he said, smirking.

"You _just_ finished telling me about the big game." Steve interrupted accusingly. Nat laughed.

"Exactly, they don't play baseball in tornadoes and mud."

"Where were you in a tornado?" Steve wondered aloud. Perhaps he forgot that he was talking to two spies, albeit employees of a defunct agency, and that there was little-to-no chance that Clint would actually tell him where he had actually been. So Clint didn't even bother to answer, just turned back to Nat and grinned at her as brightly as always.

She never did find out exactly what he'd thought about her necklace. She never wore it again, whether he was around or not—she broke the thing and carried just the small arrow with her, sewn into her belt, where nobody would ever find it again. At least not by accident.

**Author's Note:**

> "at least not by accident" sequel anybody?


End file.
